She couldn't look him in the eye just yet.
"Here, let's try this on…" He moved to put it around her. The way he covered her had her heart fluttering so. His big warm hands held her. He kneaded her shoulders, as his head bent and he kissed one scar then another, and then slowly, moved around her to look into her eyes. "It doesn't matter, you are still a beautiful woman…"
It was a strange gesture and she didn't understand it. He wasn't shocked or showing a bit of pity for her.
A tear hovered on her eyelash and he reached to kiss that away too.
She closed her eyes, savoring every touch.
She drew breath, "I don't understand."
"I know…but maybe someday you will." He answered huskily. Before he moved to let her button it, he bent to her ear, kissing it and murmuring, "You're a beautiful woman, Shannon. Those scars can't hide that."
Her mouth flew open as she turned to look at him. Big mistake, his lips swooped down on hers, taking them in an unhurried kiss. Her heart hammered like a drum and she couldn't stop the wondrous sigh that escaped her. Instinctively her arms went around his neck as she yielded to his mastery. His lips were warm, heady, and sent a wave of sensations through her.
She forgot about the Indians. She forgot that he had witnessed the scars for himself. She forgot she married him. All she could think of was the wonderful sensations he evoked. Lost in a world of his making, she relished the way he took charge of her.
She clung to him, mesmerized by his lack of shock, thrilled by his possession.
When he turned her lose, she looked well kissed and breathless.
His crooked smile sent a thrill through her. She quickly stifled the thrill. How could he look upon her like that and still kiss her?
Embarrassed and stunned, she hurriedly dressed, the sleeves were too long, the shirt a bit big, but it covered everything, and she was thankful. She rolled up the sleeves.
"Thanks…" she murmured.
His eyes penetrated her soul, as he shocked her once more with his words. "Someday, Mrs. Cutler, I'd like to kiss every one of those scars." Then he walked away, leaving her staring with her mouth open.
Chapter Eleven
Despite the intimacy of those moments on the trail, she put them away in a small corner of her heart and would consider them later.
Jesse Cutler could curl her toes, melt her heart and would hurt her when he signed the divorce papers, she suddenly realized.
Dear God, how had this happened? A couple of weeks ago, she hadn't known him. Now….she was falling in love and that could be disastrous.
~*~
As the heat bore down on them, they traveled at a steady pace now that Billy was healing better.
"What kind of Indians were those?" Jimmy John questioned as they pushed on toward Texas.
"Those were renegade Utes." Jesse told them, glancing at Shannon for a moment. She didn't seem as shaken, but her cheeks still flamed.
He reflected on the feelings he displayed. He hadn't wanted her on this long trip. For one, things could happen, like those unexpected Utes. For another, Thornton, he still didn't trust him even though he'd been silent most of the trip. A new element had been added though. He was concerned for her safety. He cared. He'd never let that happen before.
He'd never allowed himself the pleasure of feeling anything for a woman. Somehow, Shannon had broken through his obvious shell and exposed the healthy appetite of a man. He could silently admit it, he was more than a little attracted to her, but now was not the time to take that subject up. Besides, on a trip like this, many things could change.
What had surprised even him was the magnitude of pain she must have suffered from those scars and at such a young age. His temper flared when he thought of the man that did that to her. For the man had left scars deeper than any physical wound could ever leave. She believed herself less a woman because of it, and that simply wasn't true.
Even though this wasn't the time or the place, he knew that showing her in small doses might awaken her to new possibilities. He only hoped she wouldn't turn away from her feelings.
He had to get her off his mind. His job didn't allow for romance. Still, a smile here and there, a slight touch, maybe even an enjoyable kiss…like the last one they shared wouldn't hurt.
He thought about the fire that enveloped them and how easily it had grown.
He knew in his heart, his wife was just that…his wife. And whether it was for a month or for a lifetime, it was probably the one and only time he'd allow a woman inside his heart. A preacher had legally married him, and that broke down a lot of barriers for him. He took that seriously. He believed marriage was sacred and he'd do everything in his power to be a good and faithful husband, as long as it lasted.
He remembered the rejection he'd suffered from his mother as a child. She berated him verbally every day of his life. "You'll never amount to anything. Your brothers are much smarter and braver than you will ever be."
He'd been ten when he found out she wasn't his real mother. One of his brothers had let it slip. Up until then, he hadn't understood why his mother seemed to hate him. His father dead, the hate for him seem to grow through the years.
He was grown when he found out his real mother had been a dancehall girl that had been accidentally shot during a bar room brawl. She had never married his father, and his stepmother resented him because of her. He had to grow up to find that out.
His father had died too soon to tell him how it all had happened. His stepmother would not talk about his mother to him.
Therefore, for the first few years of his adult life, turning away from females had been easy. He hadn't had a loving relationship with his stepmother, so he figured he didn't need a woman.
However, as he got older, he noticed that many of his ranger friends were happily married and had children. He began to realize that family life could be warm and wonderful. That marriage was what you made of it.
Now he looked at Shannon and wondered.
He was so distracted he didn't see what everyone was staring at until the smoke billowed into the air.
They moved closer, slowly.
Indians again, but this time Jesse noted it was Arapaho.
"Didn't expect this, I thought the Arapaho were headed for the Shoshone Reservation in Wyoming." Jesse said as though talking to himself.
"Always renegades that don't want to go…" Jimmy John said.
"You're right about that. Looks like this happened a few days ago." Jesse said as he checked the charred remains of a wagon. "We'd best be traveling away from here. We don't want to be in their path."
"Look!" Darrel shouted. "Out there!"
Jesse's head whipped about in the direction Darrel was pointing.
Immediately he rode to the center of attention. It was a white girl, dressed in Indian clothes, carrying a baby on her back.
She had blonde hair, braided like an Indian. She wore a headband, and buckskin dress. Jesse realized instantly that she had been a captive, and obviously for a long while.
She looked more than distraught, as though she didn't even see or hear Jesse and the others as they rode up.
"Wait…" Jesse called to her.
She stopped and turned around, shading her eyes to look at them. Her face didn't register what she was seeing.
"Who are you, and what are you doing out here alone?" Jesse asked as he slowly approached her.
She didn't answer.
Darrel got off his horse and came up to her. He gave her some water and looked into her blue eyes. "We are friends…," he offered.
Jesse shook his head. "Why didn't I think of that?"
She nodded dully at them both, her eyes straying to Shannon and then the other men.
Jesse and the others dismounted, finding some shade in the rocks and scrub oaks.
They camped there and tried to get the girl to speak, but she wouldn't.
She ate their food, and watched them carefully. She fed her baby and Jimmy John and the o
thers watched as she nursed the child.
Shannon nodded to Jesse.
"Get your eyes back in your heads boys. This girl has suffered enough without you ogling her." Jesse barked at them.
"Prettiest thing I ever did see, a woman nursing her kid." Thornton stared relentlessly.
Jesse got an uneasy feeling in his gut. Thornton had a sexual appetite, which made him dangerous. Jesse would have to keep an eye on him from now on.
Darrel went up to her, and spread his blanket over her shoulder to give her some privacy. She glanced at him, but said nothing.
"They won't hurt you. Don't be afraid." Darrel encouraged her.
Billy shook his head, "She's a squaw now, don't you see that?"
"Maybe, but she's still a white." Darrel argued.
Shannon sat beside her, trying to be friendly. "Darrel's right, she's white."
"Maybe so, but that baby she's nursing is hers and it's Indian." Jimmy John laughed.
"She's obviously been a captive for some time." Shannon reasoned.
"Once a white woman takes a buck…she's Indian too, in my books." Jimmy John laughed once more. "Dirty filthy Indians, who would want her now.
"She's sure pretty." Thornton refused to quit staring at her. "And young too."
"She's probably not any older than Darrel." Shannon quipped. "Taken captive, she's had no choice…"
When the men refused to quit making lewd remarks, Shannon got up and went to make a meal, shooting them a look of disgust, on her way. "Maybe you deserve to hang."
Jimmy John shot her a frown, but Thornton was still smiling at the girl.
Jesse watched her closely. The Arapaho might still be about. He didn't want anything happening to Shannon.
Thornton was still staring at the girl as she laid the baby down to sleep, this made Jesse uneasy.
Darrel sat with the girl and tried to make friends with her.
"You shinin' up to that white squaw?" Billy asked as he leaned against a tree trunk and watched them. His wound was healing now, and the transfusion had given him new life, and attitude.
"She's a white woman." Darrel corrected.
"Not now she ain't." Jimmy John cautioned. "Once they been with a buck…they ain't white no more. It's a fact."
"Says who?" Darrel fumed.
"Says me." Jimmy John laughed. "And most of the whites around about. You hook up with something like her and you'll have nothing but trouble from the whites and the Indians."
"Leave her alone. Hasn't she been through enough?" Darrel defended.
Jesse put his arm on Darrel's shoulder. "Calm down, Darrel. You can see after her. She can double on your horse. I don't trust anyone but Shannon and you, but Shannon can't protect her, like you can. I'll see if Shannon will take the baby. That is if she will turn lose of it long enough."
Darrel nodded shooting Jimmy John and Thornton a frown.
Jesse pulled Darrel away from the crowd, and looked at him. "They are right to an extent. Right now, she's more Indian than white. Somehow, she got away from them, maybe even ran away herself, but until she comes to trust us a little, I doubt we'll get much out of her. We can take her to the nearest fort and they can take care of her, see she gets home to her family." Jesse instructed.
Darrel frowned at that news too. But he didn't say anything.
Shannon fixed them a meal and brought some to the girl.
She sat beside her and watched her with the child. The baby wasn't old enough to do much of anything but make cute little faces.
When she was about to move away, the girl spoke for the first time. "He is my baby…" She said simply. "His Indian name is Little Hawk, I call him Hawk."
Shannon smiled as she turned back to look at her. "He is beautiful."
"My name is White Lily…I mean…Susan." She reached to touch her hand.
Shannon sat down once more beside her. "Susan, that's a pretty name."
"I was captured in Wyoming. The Cheyenne took me to their village, after they killed my folks. Then later...they traded me to the Arapaho. They are a kind people. I've been there for many moons…the last I counted were three years."
"That's a long time. And you are so young…"
"I am fifteen. I was only eleven when they took me. I was a slave for a while to the Cheyenne, until I came of age, then they traded me to the Arapaho, and the chief's son married me and I had his child…." She explained.
"You've been through a lot…" Shannon held her hand. "For one so young."
"I am afraid to go back to the white settlements. They will never accept me…And my tribe will hunt me, they will want my baby. I cannot leave him."
"How do you know?" Shannon asked, perplexed that she was afraid of her own people. "Have you ever escaped and tried to get back?"
"No." She shook her head. "But white men have been in our camps, I saw how they looked at me, I heard the things they said. The same as those men over there have said. It is true, I have lived with an Indian man, had his child. The white's will never accept me again. Now I cannot return to the tribe either. I fear there is no place for my baby and me. They would take my baby, as he is the grandson of the chief…but…they would kill me. I am a dead woman walking among you now."
Tears came down easily now and Shannon tried her best to comfort her.
"How did you get separated from them? The Indians I mean…"
"My husband beat me…because I did not have his food ready for him before he went on the hunt. He hurt me. I was scared, so as soon as he left on the hunt, I ran away. I did not think about returning to the whites. I thought about getting away…that is all."
"I can understand that." Shannon nodded. "You were very brave…"
"But…I know I will not be accepted in the white world now. Nor my baby. And I won't leave my baby behind." She cried now, real tears. "And the tribe…they will hunt me, maybe kill me and take my baby. It is all so useless."
Shannon took her in her arms and rocked her and the baby together. "Don't worry. We will figure something out."
"You are a kind woman…"
Shannon smiled and kept cradling them.
When Susan put the baby down for a nap, she lay beside him and closed her eyes. Shannon got up and joined Jesse.
She glanced at the two of them sleeping together. "Her name is Susan, her white folks are dead, and she's afraid to go back to the white people…and afraid the Indians will come to take the baby from her, and kill her."
Jesse nodded. "I thought as much. At least she will talk with you. That's something."
"She's so afraid. She feels isolated. She said…the Indians will hunt her down and take the baby."
Jesse turned his head in question. "Did she say why they would take the baby?"
"Only that she married the chief's son, and that they would want the baby…not her back."
"I can understand that. She's right about being accepted back into the white world.. With that baby she's going to have a rough time of it." Jesse shook his head. "And because of the baby the Indians won't leave her alone, either. Leaves us in a fix. We need to keep moving."
Darrel heard them talking and joined them.
"I want to take care of her…" He blurted.
Jesse glanced at Darrel. "You realize what you are saying?"
"Yeah, I do. But you don't understand why."
"Then tell us." Jesse encouraged.
"All my life, I've been running away. Doing things, I shouldn't have, falling in with the wrong people. You've given me a new chance…a chance I don't take lightly. Now she's come along. She's got nobody from what Mrs. Cutler said. I want to help her. See she don't have a rough time of things. Look what she's been through. Look how young she is. It ain't her fault. She's so alone."
"That's very noble of you, but Darrel, that's her child, and if you take her, you'll have to take her child too. And you've only just met her. She might not want to go with you. Besides, have you thought of all the trouble this could cause?"
Darre
l nodded. "That's all I been thinking about. I heard Jimmy John, and Thornton making fun of her, calling her names. I know that most of the people would do the same. But not me. I'll take her away somewhere, if I have to. I want to keep her and the baby safe."
"I was thinking of taking her to the fort, Darrel, so they could find out if she has any kin." Jesse explained.
"You think her kin would feel any different about her? She needs someone to take care of her and the baby and not judge her."
"Let's see how things go, Darrel. You're jumping too fast. Let's see how she feels about it, too."
Darrel nodded. "All right. But at least you could think about it."
"I will…" Jesse nodded.
When Darrel went to sit with the girl, Jesse seemed quiet a long time.
Shannon was surprised, and came to sit beside him, handing him a cup of coffee. "He's too young; he doesn't know what he could face…"
Jesse took the coffee from her and looked into her vulnerable face. "That's true enough, about being young. But…I think he does know."
"You aren't seriously considering what he said, are you?"
"Why not? Stranger things have happened."
Shannon put her hands on her hips and glared at him. "He's just a boy. He has no idea what he might face."
Jesse stood up and nodded looking at her with a scorching intensity. "You're right too. He is. I might agree, but Darrel's already been through a lot himself. He's had hard times before. I think he probably knows more about hard times than you or I ever have. Just because he's sixteen doesn't mean he's really sixteen. He's lived a life that has been nothing but hard. He has no one either. Jimmy John doesn't love him. Billy likes him, but he's no comfort to him. Darrel needs a reason to go on, to try harder to make it in this life. And she could be that reason. Who are we to take it from him? Let's wait and see how things work out between them, she might settle it for him."
Shannon stood with her mouth open again.
He leaned toward her, his movements intimate, his smile made her heart trip. "An open mouth is an invitation to a kiss." He leaned toward her, his cheek brushing hers, as he grazed her with his lips.
Shotgun Bride (Book Six of the Brides of the West) Page 10